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Topic: More dumb questions... (Read 4523 times)

Sugar is processed either from cane which is not grown in this country or beets which are well on their way to be GMO. Syrup is corn which is predominately GMO right now. GMO is another word for Monsanto, Monsanto is a mega corporation who owns our law makers and is doing it's damnedest to make farming illegal. "Farming" as defined as you and me along with the single family farm whereas agriculture is defined as them. Anyone that fights that hard to stamp out the little guy is criminal in my book. Once Monsanto stamps out the farmer it won't be long before they, through our trusted law makers, make it illgal to have a bee hive in your back yard because it affects their agriculture. They will be controlling what you can do or can't do to your own bee hive. Of course this will appear to be enforced by our government not the puppeteer behind the curtain. Look behind the curtain.

Seriously? For someone who started the post with "More dumb questions" you seem to have all the answers. You don't think some of the losses you're already having could be directly related to not feeding your bees?

If a bee is what it eats, if it has nothing to eat, it will end up as nothing I guess. Let them perish if you wish, but you might need to look in the morror to see who's responsible.

Ace, I agree with you about the intentions of agribusiness. But I would point out that unless you have found a hive of feral bees in a tree and moved them and their honey to your hive box, you are starting out with an artificial system. And even having bees in a box is not really natural either. It takes time to migrate your hive to more natural conditions. If I recall, you are a first year beek, so your bees haven't had a full year cycle yet. If that is the case, I think it would be reasonable to use foreign-derived cane sugar to get them through their first winter. After that, you can leave them with enough flower-derived honey to survive future winters.... but if they die this year, you will have to start over and will have made no progress toward natural.

We are having the same debate over ventilation. This winter, we are trying one long hive with an open SBB. It's a complicated issue. My instinct tells me that it makes more sense to restrict ventilation. But again, a hive box is not a tree. a hollow tree has thick walls and lots of top insulation. It's got to be less susceptible to condensation than a box with thin walls. It's true that moisture kills. The reason is that water has lot's more heat capacity (or in this case, cold capacity :-D) than air. Cold water dripping on a bee takes all the heat out of her immediately, and that is not a survivable situation. I don't know how to calculate the optimum rate of volume exchanges, so we will just have to try different amounts of ventilation and see what happens.

Not that I dont agree with parts of what you are saying, but I think a person can take this stuff a little too far. Do you not buy hive components because the trees were cut with non-epa approved chainsaws and hauled out with skidders burning petro diesel instead of bio-diesel? Bees were an investment for me and until I have some comb drawn and honey in reserve for them to over winter on, I am throwing the sugar on them for their survival. To buy a package and not to feed is neglect in my eyes. I understand what you are trying to do but your bees need a foundation before you can leave them to fend for themselves. I would love not to have to feed them up for winter, but until they get there, its sugar for me. As MB stated in another post, (paraphrasing) genetics doesnt mean much if your bees have starved to death. So far I haven't used any miticides or antibiotics in my hives and do not plan on it, but I will continue to feed.

This is the automation engineer talking now.Aside from contamination in the wax there is no reason why the comb could not be mass-produced. You could even mold a plastic comb and spray coat it with wax like the foundation is.

FYI it is already. Unfortunately it is very expensive and a little patience can save that cost. There may or may not be contamination, but there is plenty of contamination from pine wood, who knows what that stuff does....

I also wrestled with feeding sugar (anything), but soon decided feeding was better than letting them starve. I take very little honey from August on willing to wait till Spring for "my" honey. But try as they/I might sometimes they just don't put up enough to survive. So I feed. Not always and not every hive. Do I like feeding sugar, NO. But Starved/Dead bees are worse. As said above dead bees means starting over. Our job is to help "keep" them alive (my opinion).

thomas

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"Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who say they've found it."

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Seriously? For someone who started the post with "More dumb questions" you seem to have all the answers. You don't think some of the losses you're already having could be directly related to not feeding your bees?

Have all the answers? :? If I had all the answers why would I even be here? Yes, I tend to blast off my ideas and beliefs on a public forum and see who agrees with me or disagrees with me. Depending on how they support what they say I may change my ideas and beliefs. Of course some things I will never change.

I am very certain that we did not loose the hive last year due to starvation. The hive was full of honey so the local bee experts (including the one we bought the nuc from) suggested very strongly it was too much moisture. This guy has 50 years experience and is the local guru for the commercial beeks. Last year the hive progressed very slowly for a number of reasons and we did not get one drop of honey. We took the honey when we discovered the hive was dead at the advice of the guru.

But try as they/I might sometimes they just don't put up enough to survive.

To a new beek it is not obvious as to how much that is. On another topic someone made the comment that the hive needs 60-80 lbs to make it through the winter. I have no idea if that number is right. Intuition makes me think that Fl requirements would be considerable less than Upstate NY.

Another thing discussed under another topic was wintering over with two deeps vs. two deeps and a super. If we find the bees starved next spring you can be sure we will leave the super on next year. Last years evidence suggested that we don’t need the additional super.

I have been an Engineer for a long time. It is not my nature to wing it when you are in unfamiliar territory but it seems to be a common practice for new beeks and not by choice.

I am sorry if my method does not meet with your approval but it has been my experience through life that you can gather information in a much shorter period of time if you are willing to sound foolish from time to time. Many times especially on forums like this one other people have the same foolish thoughts but are not as enthusiastic about making them public as I am. I have no fear what so ever of make a fool of myself. It has worked for me in the past so I am sorry I can’t honor your wish.

We have been in a local bee club now for our second season and the amount of information that I have gathered in the short time I have been on this forum is ten fold what we got from the club.

Force it to grow in sand in the same place over and over, graft it because you can’t use the seeds. Add fertilizer, pesticides, chemicals, have the government control the price. Yup makes me feel the better sweetener is honey and maple syrup. And you want me to give it to my bees? Then why not just eat the sugar. I don’t get it.

WOW, this is fun. Hey Ace, I got me a 140 IQ here, for what that's worth, and I've found that in most company it's better to play dumb and let the grown ups talk. I learn more that way.If your that dead set against modern society and agrarian practices I darn sur hope you ain't got those bees in a wooden box. I'm a timber producer as well (small time with 270 acres) and it would blow the top off that noggin of yours if you knew all the nasty stuff we dump on them to get them to grow. Heck we go in and poison everything before we even put the first bareroot tree in the ground. That's followed by either more poison (herbicide) and/or burning (nasty greenhouse gasses) plus many do aerial applications of synthetic fertilzers.I won't even get into all the things that go on at the mill to keep the nasties from eating the wood before it gets to you.